THE NATIONS: New Booster

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Old Joe Stalin, Communist, suddenly sounded for all the world like Old George Babbitt, Hustler.

Steaks & Chambermaids. "Russia is a wonderful place," chirped Jack Stanley, general secretary of Britain's Constructional Engineering Union. No Communist, he was just back in Britain from the Moscow Economic Conference (TIME, April 14). "Of course I only got to see 30 miles of it around Moscow, but what I saw impressed me tremendously. Yes, tremendously. They put us up in the new Hotel Sovietskaya, the finest hotel I've ever seen—better than anything in Britain. All I had to do was ring the buzzer, and they'd bring me anything I wanted—anything, they said. And what food! Russian breakfasts are the biggest I've ever seen. They served me four eggs for breakfast every day. The menu had 200 dishes. I had a steak almost every day."

Stanley's fellow delegates—both unionists and businessmen—told about much the same experiences: the unceasing flow of whisky, wine and Georgian champagne, hotel suites fitted with pianos, flowers and beautiful chambermaids. They were as naively fascinated with Russia's business offers as Stanley was with his steaks. Many swallowed the line that Stalin was just a go-getter eager for a little trade.

Jack Perry, London manufacturer of ladies' ready-to-wear, reported excitedly: "A new big market for textiles is now open to us in Russia!" He told about unofficial trade "agreements" (actually only letters of intent) for $85 million in British goods. "I'm flying back to arrange the contracts . . . When they're signed, trade should begin to flow almost immediately." The Russians, said Perry with an air of discovery, want men's suits, women's dresses. Nearly a thousand British textile manufacturers—who are suffering a serious depression—called Perry, panting to do business with Russia.

On his way home from the conference, a Chicago businessman told of more Stalinist boosting to come: Moscow will set up a permanent committee to keep in touch with businessmen in all countries—"something like Rotary International."

Fish & Olive Oil. Iron Curtain diplomats in London have been telling the British for months that the only solution for their economic plight is to cut loose from the U.S. and trade with Russia. The British government and many Britons know that this is a trap, but there are plenty of people (notably Aneurin Sevan's followers) who are willing to listen. It is the same in the rest of Western Europe, where growing islands of unemployment have appeared in recent months. Owners of processing plants in Antwerp, fisheries in Trondheim, boiler works in Lille, olive groves in Tuscany, all cocked an ear to Moscow. In West Germany's Bundestag, the Foreign Affairs Committee demanded an end of curbs on trade with the East "as far as security permits."

Russia's business blandishments would be far less dangerous if the U.S.'s own shortsighted high tariff policy—which keeps more & more European industries from trade with the U.S.—were not helping to drive European business into Eastern arms (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).